


Frozen Rainbow

by Stormslostradiant



Series: Merry Go Round [1]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7400986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormslostradiant/pseuds/Stormslostradiant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six solitary shadows, circling a  sky that was never theirs.<br/>Six bogeymen, spoken in reverence and hushed voices in the dark.<br/>Six abominations that fight for what, exactly.<br/>Six shadowed pairs of eyes.<br/>Six baby backs that stand as straight as necessary.<br/>Six, the strongest in the world, and what that might mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen Rainbow

The Arcobaleno had always had a hierarchy of sorts. It was never explicitly stated, but most felt that there was a certain level of power that every one of them had, and that this created a natural rank of head honcho and lackey.  
It was never explicitly stated as such, but most viewed Reborn as the strongest Arcobaleno. The man had been a famous Hitman before the shrink, and afterwards only used his power of Activation to give himself the Strength and speed of a god. In addition to his ridiculous disguise skills that somehow still worked as a baby, and his ability to seemingly read minds, his very being exuded a sense of primal carnivore, of ultimate predator.  
After him, most agreed Colonello took the position of second strongest, if one disregarded Lal Mirch. Unlike Reborn, and Viper, he did not make people bow in his path, but his very friendliness belied the strength behind the blonde’s combat training. Most agreed that a direct fight between him and Reborn would indeed be something to see.  
Third place was usually taken by Viper, less for his or her personal strength as for their knowledge and ability to utterly destroy even large groups with the deadly knife of Blackmail.  
Fourth was Fon, the Martial artist. It was well known that he could fight, and fight well, yet most believed his lack of weapon put him at a severe disadvantage when compared with the other two fighters among the Arcobaleno. Very rarely did one hear of the man’s military exploits, mostly he was a teacher.  
Fifth place was taken by Verde. His strength lay in his knowledge and his technology, and most agreed it could not compare to the previous four. He was a genius; however genius did little for martial strength, beyond what favours others owed him for his inventions.  
Last and least, and often forgotten, was Skull the Stuntman. He was loved for his action, and his shows, but strength? Most saw in Skull but a child, forced into a world he could not understand, they saw a boy who never fought, and maybe that was the reason for Reborn and Colonello’s sadistic, and slightly misguided attempts to teach and protect their lackey. His flames went into his regeneration, most were sure. Skull was just a normal human.  
Perhaps a little history will clear things up, as from the start, the Arcobaleno were the strongest. And in their strength they were equal.  
....................  
Let us begin with Colonello, why not. Second place, and student of one Lal Mirch. Unlike Reborn, Colonello was a trainee the day the curse was applied, and even the he was not meant to be one of the Strongest Seven. At the time he was not one of the Strongest Seven.  
However had one asked his trainer Lal, she could have told of the blonde’s potential. That although he was weaker now, in time he would have surpassed even her in ability. And if sometimes at night his heartbeat would slow and slow, until Lal waited up all night just to be certain of the next beat: that was between them.  
For Fon, one has to look into the past, at the long hours spent on mountaintops with only the wind for company, trying again and again to control the unstoppable force that was the Storm. One would need to take a trip into the Himalayas to see the huge craters burnt into the ground, and X-ray vision to see the many burn scars hidden by Fon’s dress. Fon did not possess Reborn’s activated strength, or Colonello’s calm aim, but he had tamed a Hurricane and had as such learned unequalled control.  
Viper’s struggle was still in the present, in not drowning in fantasy, not drowning in power. They were everywhere and in everyone’s minds and it had taken breaking their sister and taking her apart and noticing months later that she was just a puppet to ground them in reality. Mammon fought their fears each and every day, as they were as real as anything else in a world made of illusion. They fought for limits where others tried to break them.  
Even Reborn had fought and fought, to clean the blood off his hands. He had strength, he could kill, yet healing with activation as strong as his had killed his first patient in years. No one ever talked about the suited individual that would sit at the child’s bedside table, shakily holding a hand and running his fingers across the bald white scalp. For a long time all he touched seemed to wither, and wasn’t that pathetic of a sun?  
Verde never flew, never wore soles made of plastic. His base was underground, and he never stepped a foot in the sea. Lightning ran his mind, jumped across synapses faster that a molecule ever could, faster than it ever should. Verde could speed himself up, but not slow himself down, and each second seems to stretch to eternity. He controlled his hormone balance manually, and wore gloves to touch other people. He lived and breathed his research, in a way no one else ever could. As a child he was hunted, thought to be demon. Lightning struck when he was happy, when he was sad, when he was angry, when he cried, when he hugged other people, especially in the rain, when he played sports or when he laughed. It was all the same. Sometimes if he let his hand hang loose it would point north, and when he touched electric fences he fried the generators. He grew up a god among humans, a demon of the blitz.  
For Skull, the answer lay in the future when strapped to a table and cut into two, two Skulls grew from the remains, when later when Reborn and Viper lay bleeding out on the ground something finally clicked and power and words and impression and everything just grew and grew and grew in a self-feeding circle that just wouldn’t stop until Skull collapsed into a small sapling that grew into a rainforest and something broke again.  
Only Viper truly knew, what Luce long suspected. The Arcobaleno were the strongest, and that always came with a price. They chuckled when Reborn was announced Strongest Arcobaleno, and scowled at the treatment of Skull.  
But if you paid Viper enough, maybe just maybe they’d tell you, that every Arcobaleno had a story, and each one could be a monster if they let themselves be. There was no strongest, there was no hierarchy. Just seven human standing alone at the top of the world.


End file.
